WorldRefugee Dayis held every year onJune20, a special day when the world takes time
to recognize the desperate needs and the resilience of forcibly displaced
people, and to plan ways to help them..

See:
UNHCR: High Commissioner for Refugees Newsletter.

ANOTHERNEWSLETTER
IN OMNI’S NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL DAYS PROJECT

Contents: UN World Refugee DAY Newsletter #6, 2017

TheFleeing

Refugees
and Displaced from Wars and Violence 2017

Climate
Refugees and Displaced Persons 2017

Helping

“Canopy”
for Northwest Arkansas

A
Play and a Diary About WWII Jewish Refugees

UNHCR:
UN High Commissioner for Refugees 2017

UNHCR
Newsletter 2016

UNA-USA
2017

Kenya, Nigeria, Myanmar, Guatemala, Syria,
Europe: children

Equador

UNA-USA 2016 Giving Tuesday

Chobani’s
Gives Money

And
Athens a Hotel

Fleeing

Refugees
and Displaced from Wars and Violence 2017

20 Jun2016

‘Unprecedented’
65 million people displaced by war and persecution in 2015 – UN

In
Yemen, internally displaced children stand outside their family tent after the
family fled their home in Saada province and found refuge in Darwin camp, in
the northern province of Amran. Photo: UNHCR/Yahya Arhab

The number of people displaced
from their homes due to conflict and persecution last year exceeded 60 million
for the first time in the United Nations’ history, a tally greater than the
combined populations of the United Kingdom, or of Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, says a new report released on World Refugee Day today.

The Global
Trends 2015 compiled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) notes that 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of
2015, an increase of more than 5 million from 59.5 million a year earlier.

The tally comprises 21.3 million
refugees, 3.2 million asylum seekers, and 40.8 million people internally
displaced within their own countries.

Measured against the world’s
population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now
either a refugee, an asylum-seeker or internally displaced – putting them at a
level of risk for which UNHCR knows no precedent.

On average, 24 people were forced
to flee each minute in 2015, four times more than a decade earlier, when six people
fled every 60 seconds.

Colombia had the largest numbers
of internally displaced people (IDPs), at 6.9 million, followed by Syria’s 6.6
million and Iraq’s 4.4 million.

While the spotlight last year was
on Europe’s challenge to manage more than one million refugees and migrants who
arrived via the Mediterranean, the report shows that the vast majority of the
world’s refugees were in developing countries in the global south.

In all, 86 per cent of the
refugees under UNHCR’s mandate in 2015 were in low- and middle-income countries
close to situations of conflict. MORE:

Jun 20, 2016 - In Yemen, internally displaced children stand
outside their family tent after the ... 'Unprecedented' 65 million people displaced by war and persecution in
2015 – UN ... In terms of the refugee-to-population ratio, Lebanon has the highest ... the millions
of people whose lives have been destroyed by violence.

... and displaced people. Commentary
and archival information about refugees and displaced people from The New York Times. ... June 8, 2017 ... The Six-Day War at 50. How the ... Listen to the voices of those who fled the violence. By ZACK ...

Updated June 6, 2017 World Vision Staff
... 5 million Syrians are refugees, and 6.3 million are displaced within Syria; half of those affected are
children. ... Violence: Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, as many as 386,000 people have ...

It's a crisis beyond
anything we've seen since World War II — and Trump just turned ... Updated by Zack
Beauchamp@zackbeauchampzack@vox.com Jan 30, 2017, 2:30pm EST ... It found
that the number of displaced persons — people forced from their ... That's because the
countries wracked by civil war and violence are ...

Over 370,000 people have
died due to direct war violence, and at least 800,000 more ... 10.1 million — the number
of war
refugees and displaced persons; The US federal ... Budget Puts Lives at Risk,”
U.S. News & World Report, May 23, 2017.

Jun 20, 2016 - UN High Commissioner
for Refugees Filippo Grandi ...
“More people are being displaced by war and persecution and that's ... while thousands more people
have fled raging gang and otherviolence in ... UNHCR 2001-2017.

Jun 20, 2016 - as a result of
persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human rights violations. ... 3 The
number of newly displaced refugees does not include applications for asylum whose ... est
since the aftermath of World War II.

Tens of thousands of
migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from Africa and the ... and asylum seekers to violent abuse at the hands
of government officials, militias, and ... six others in a camp for
internally displaced people from Tawergha, in Tripoli. ... The ICC has the
mandate to investigate war crimes and crimes against ...

Searches
related to Refugees and Displaced from Wars and Violence 2017

"Yes, there is a
protection gap involving climate change refugees, but we don't call them
climate refugees for the reason that they are not covered by the 1951 [Refugee]
Convention," said Marine Franck, a climate change officer at the UN's
refugee agency, UNHCR. That treaty extends only to people who have a
well-founded fear of being persecuted because of race, religion, nationality,
or membership of a social group or political opinion, and are unable, or
unwilling to seek protection from their home countries.

This means that the
estimated 200,000 Bangladeshis who become homeless each
year due to river erosion cannot easily appeal for resettlement in another
country. It also means that the residents of the small islands of
Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu, where one in 10 has migrated within the past
decade, can't be classified as refugees, even though those who remain are "trapped" in worsening environmental conditions.

Mar 24, 2017 - Global governance of
displaced and trapped populations, forced migration and ... the false
assumption that displaced people and refugees can return to their place ... [1] “Climate refugee” is controversial,
because it does not capture the ..... Following the G20 Summit in 2017, the United Nations
International ...

Dec 31, 2016 - War, weather, climate change and terrorism
have made millions homeless. ... Displaced: faces of some of the world's 63 million people fleeing disaster ...
2016 18.00 EST Last modified on Friday 7 April 2017 18.46 EDT ... Most
are displaced within their
country's borders and 21.3 million fled as refugees.

Jan 9, 2017 - Letters: Climate change is driving
long-term environmental damage and ... Monday 9 January 2017 14.57 EST Last
modified on Thursday 9 March ... one in 30 people could be displaced, many as a result
of climate change.

Apr 19, 2017 - Climate displacement is becoming one of
the world's most powerful ... By JESSICA BENKO APRIL 19, 2017 ... nearly 64
million “persons of concern,” whose
numbers have tripled ... There is no internationally recognized legal
definition for “environmental migrants” or “climate refugees,” so there is no
formal ...

In January, outraged liberals and progressives
nationwide took to the streets and airports to protest Donald Trump's
#MuslimBan targeting refugees, immigrants, Arabs, Iranians, Africans,
and others based on their religion and national origin.

The ban has torn families apart, put asylum seekers at
risk, and further endangered countless refugees fleeing wars and
famine. As Trump continues to expand the War on Terror in places like
Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, there will only be more civilians
killed and forced to leave their homes.

USCPR and member groups joined the chorus calling out
the racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim bigotry behind this proposed
ban, which is all the more grotesque considering the role of U.S.
interventions and militarism in creating the conditions from which
people are being forced to flee. We knew this:

If you have an opinion about Israel's ban on refugees,
you have an opinion about Trump's #MuslimBan.

Next Tuesday, June 20th at 9am Pacific / 12pm Eastern, connecting and
lifting up 70 years of Palestinian resistance to Israel's refugee ban
and those impacted by and fighting Trump's ban, the webinar will
feature:

·Kafia Adhmed, who organizes with the Somali community in
Minneapolis

·Badil, Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and
Refugee Rights

·Ramah Kudaimi, USCPR Director of Grassroots Organizing
and member of DC Justice for Muslim Coalition

We cannot exceptionalize Israel's actions that are
mirrored by our own government. Likewise, we must also say
clearly:

If you have an opinion about Trump's Muslim ban, you
have an opinion about Israel.

We can and must bring in those aghast by Trump's ban to
see the connections with Israel's own U.S.-supported 70-year ban on
Palestinian refugees. Israel was created and is maintained through the ethnic
cleansing and ongoing exile of more than 7 million Palestinian refugees
who are denied the right to return to their homes and lands -- an
inalienable right inscribed in international law -- simply because of
their religion and national origin.

In a united front against racism and white supremacy,
there is no more room for "PEPs" (Progressives Except on
Palestine), just as there is no more room for "POPs"
(Progressives Only on Palestine).

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS - A local group is working to bring refugees
from all over the world to Northwest Arkansas.

One hundred refugees from Iraq, Syria and Central Africa are
expected to arrive in NWA sometime this fall. Canopy NWA is
the group working to bring these people to NWA.

Director Emily Linn says this is a new community led initiative
started by a group of Arkansans. The group receives federal funding to help
refugees.

Linn said the U.S. State Department decides on the refugees who
will come into the country. The State Department then works with nine
resettlement agencies to find housing and assistance for those refugees.

Canopy NWA is a part of the second largest agency; The
Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service.

"We have a case manager who kind of works them through this
process of getting them on their feet over the course of three months. So that
involves getting them signed up for any benefits like welfare they might be
eligible for to kind of help them starting out," Linn said.

Linn said the group will help the refugees find apartments, get
social security cards and enroll them in cultural orientation courses. She said
the federal government regulates the process all the way down to how many forks
and spoons are in each apartment.

For many reasons having refugees on my mind
in 2016 (UN: 65 million displaced persons), I saw in a new light a reading of a
new play, “War Mother,” by Adolphe Nissenholc, and a production of a new play
based upon Anne Frank’s diaries.
Nissenholc’s play, brought to UAF by Frank
Scheide (accompanied by the author), is based upon his childhood experience
when he was given to a foster family by his mother just before they were to be
deported to Auschwitz. Only young Adolphe and an uncle survived from his
family. Now dead, both natural and foster mothers (and the father),
contend over the son. Who will the now old son follow into the
afterlife? The story of Anne Frank is widely
familiar--finding refuge in 1942 from Nazi extermination in an attic in Amsterdam,
until finally discovered and gassed in Auschwitz.

To many viewers, like me the plays
connect immediately to the refugees of today seeking safety from wars,
occupations, and cruel consequences. So it is no surprise that an
article in The New York Times related Anne to a Syrian
girl. Specifically, Otto Frank applied for visas to the U.S. before he
took his family into hiding, and he was not granted them.
Similarly, regrettably, while Canada recently brought 25,000 Syrians to safety
in their country, the US has only very recently received 10,000, though it has
now promised to bring more. Germany has taken one million.

Rev. Lowell Grisham explains Jesus’ expanded
definition of “neighbor” in the Good Samaritan story, the meaning of the Cross
in Jesus’ embrace of all the “brokenness of the human condition,” God’s love
“extending to all humanity,” and much more, including the fundamental role of
empathy. Lowell Grisham. “Loving Our Enemies.” NADG (10-4-16).

"We are
extremely grateful for how quickly donors enabled us to provide
this...it has been record time." – Maria Clara Martin, UNHCR Ecuador County
Representative

Dear
Dick,

I’m writing to let
you know that, only 48 hours after the devastating earthquake
hit, an emergency airlift arrived in Ecuador. 100 tons of
urgent supplies are being delivered to areas that were hit the hardest
by the recent earthquake.

Thanks to the
generosity of donors from around the world, families affected by this
disaster will finally have some relief. Supporters of the UN Refugee
Agency helped send supplies including tents, plastic sheets, sleeping
mats, kitchen sets and jerry cans.

18,000 mosquito
nets were also delivered. That’s so important – many families have been
forced to sleep outside, putting them at risk of contracting diseases
carried by mosquitos such as the Zika virus.

Every year, events for Night of a Thousand Dinners are hosted by
thousands of people across the world to raise millions in funds for
worthy causes. In honor of World Refugee Day on June 20, UNA-USA invites you to host or
organize a dinner event to raise funds for our Adopt-A-Future campaign.
All contributions raised will directly support schools in UN Refugee
Agency camps in Kenya.

All funds raised will be matched
by philanthropic partners, doubling the impact of your gift!

Approximately
600,000 refugees currently reside in Kenya, with more than half of
these refugees being under age 18. The country has absorbed thousands
of new refugees from conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo,
South Sudan, and Somalia, while receiving little media attention and
very limited philanthropic support. Sadly, many refugee children
struggle for access to the education they need to build a better
future.

Together, we can
make a difference in the lives of these refugee children.

We’ve put together a toolkit with
everything you need to plan your dinner. Whether you organize a
backyard barbecue or host an elegant dinner at a restaurant, you’ll be
raising essential funds for refugee children in need.

So, please start planning your
dinner now—and make sure to send us photos and tell us how
your event went! We’re so inspired by your compassion and dedication to
helping those who need it most.

Children in northeastern
Nigeria continue to suffer rights violations as Boko Haram forces recruit
them as soldiers, spies or suicide bombers, attack schools and employ
sexual violence against them, according to United Nations Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres' report on children and armed conflict in the country.

About 60% of Rohingya girls who
flee to India, Malaysia or Indonesia to escape violence in Myanmar end up
married before they turn 18 and the average age to become a mother is age
18, according to a study by the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees. One-third of Rohingya women and girls report they are victims of
domestic abuse.

Plans to implement
de-escalation zones in part of Syria are encouraging, but any peace deal
must provide actual improvement in the lives of civilians living there,
said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Opposition forces
in Syria have decried the creation of safe zones in the country, saying it
threatens territorial integrity.

UN Wire is a free
service sponsored by the United Nations
Foundation which is dedicated to supporting the
United Nations' efforts to address the most pressing humanitarian,
socioeconomic and environmental challenges facing the world today.

More
than 65 million people have fled their homes and risked their lives in search
of refuge. Most are children, but less than half have access to education. The United Nations Association of the United
States of America, in tandem with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and its
fundraising arm USA for UNHCR, is working to prevent a lost generation by
giving refugee children the education they need to build a better future.

Host a
Night of a Thousand Dinners Event

Every
year, events for Night of a Thousand Dinners are hosted by tens of thousands of
individuals across the world to raise millions in funds for worthy causes. In
honor of World Refugee Day on June 20, UNA-USA invites all chapters and members
to participate by hosting or organizing a dinner event to raise funds in
support of the Adopt-A-Future campaign. Download our toolkit to plan and host
your event!

Not
a member of UNA-USA? JOIN NOW!

Membership
in the United Nations Association of the USA is open to any U.S. citizen or
resident who is committed to the purposes of the United Nations Association of
the USA.

There are no desks
or chairs. Students sit on a dirt floor. Yet, this is the best place
most children have ever been: the classroom.

For refugee
children, acquiring even a basic education seems like the biggest, most
unlikely dream – in fact, many children we speak to don't even think
it's a possibility. These are young ones whose only hope is to survive
another day.

The impact of these
lost children cannot be underestimated. Every child who is denied their
basic, human right of receiving an education is exposed to a lifetime
of potential exploitation and violence. Together, we must stop
this.

So, please mark your
calendar for November 29 as the day to stand #WithRefugees.

Sincerely,

Chris Whatley
Executive Director, UNA-USA

P.S. Don't forget to join us at 4 p.m. (EST) on
#GivingTuesday for a Twitter chat with The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR),
UN Foundation and more about why we're standing #WithRefugees this
holiday season -- and every season. Questions will be asked from @UNAUSA and
will include the hashtags #GivingTuesday and #WithRefugees.
Hope to see you online!

Patrick Strickland. “A Four-Star Response to the Refugee
Crisis.” In These Times (July 2017).

Athens’ City Plaza Hotel, six years
empty, now bustles with hundreds of refugees who fled from Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, and other warring nations and are on their way to permanent
settlement. The Solidarity Initiative
for Political and Economic Refugees took over the closed hotel in April 2016 as
an alternative to squatting, and since then it has housed “some 1,500 refugees
and migrants.” They are given
considerable autonomy compared to the typical NGO or government camps, the author
writes. –D/